Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 428

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 428

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/428

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Greetings,

Here's the information we found on your late-period Portuguese name "Lucia de Neves" and your arms, "Argent, issuant from a cloud in chief a hand of Fatima and a base wavy flory."

We don't have much information about Portuguese names, but we know that "Lucia" was used in 16th-century Spain. (1) Although it's not a very common name, it's reasonable to assume that it was also used in Portugal.

"Neves" is Portuguese for "snow." There is a town called "Neves" in Brazil; this is a shortened form of it's original name, "Nossa Senhora de Neves" or "Our Lady of the Snow" (a reference to S. Mary). We're not sure when the shortened form was first used, or whether "Neves" is a reasonable name for Portugal as well as Brazil. However, since we have evidence either way, we would give this the benefit of the doubt.

We had a complicated time discussing your arms, for several reasons. The first is that late-period Iberian heraldry is very different from heraldry in the rest of Europe. A design like yours would be very unlikely in England or France, but might be more "mainstream" in Portugal. Of course our information about Portugeuse heraldry is limited, so we can't be sure.

We think it's unlikely that the hand of Fatima would show up in heraldry. Many common symbols were never used in heraldry. We've never seen a hand of Fatima in heraldry, and based on the Iberian heraldry we've seen we don't think it's a likely charge.

When symbols are used in heraldry, they're almost always shown in their standard form--so that if the hand of Fatima were used, it would almost certainly be drawn in it's usual form (palm forward, fingers pointing up), not coming out of a cloud.

Our recommendation is that you change the "hand of Fatima" to a normal hand. This would make an unusual device, but one that isn't out of the range of possibility for your period. We couldn't check this for conflict because you didn't include a color for the charges, but it's highly unlikely that this will conflict with any registered armory.

Arval Benicoeur, Pedro de Alcazar, and Talan Gwynek contributed to this letter.

We hope this has been helpful, and that we can continue to assist you.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel